"It's Time to Organize!" A Blog Related to Activities of the Coalition for Economic Survival (CES) & More…..

The Coalition for Economic Survival (CES) has expressed deep concern and outrage at President-Elect Donald Trump’s selection of Ben Carson to be the new Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). CES does not believe Carson has the knowledge, experience, ability, compassion or commitment to the goals of HUD to lead the nation’s housing agency.

Over the last 4 decades, CES has been the leading organization in the Los Angeles area that has provided outreach, education and organizing assistance to tenants living in HUD subsidized housing in an effort to preserve this important and significant number of affordable housing units.

HUD oversees federal rental assistance programs that serve over 5 million of the country’s lowest income households, as well as administers tens of billions of dollars in community development, disaster recovery, and homeless assistance funding, enforces fair housing laws and acts as one of the largest mortgage insurers in the world. HUD plays a critical role in alleviating poverty, stabilizing and revitalizing communities, increasing the educational attainment and incomes of low-income families, and providing safe, affordable homes to deeply poor elderly or disabled families.

But by his own admission, Carson has stated that he “feels he has no government experience, he’s never run a federal agency. The last thing he would want to do was take a position that could cripple the presidency,” when his name was suggest to head the Department of Health and Human Services.

Carson’s aide, Armstrong Williams, has stated recently, “He’s never run an agency and it’s a lot to ask. He’s a neophyte and that’s not his strength,”

Carson has been deeply critical of social welfare programs. He has characterized the country’s safety net of cash assistance, housing allowances and social services as a failure that perpetuates dependence on government.

He is known for offering provocative commentary on a wide range of issues, including comparing the modern American government to Nazi Germany in a March 2014 interview with Breitbart, and saying at the Voter Values Summit in 2013 that Obamacare is “the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery.”

In a 2015 opinion for The Washington Times, Carson compared an Obama administration’s “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” regulation to “the failure of school busing” because it would place affordable housing “primarily in wealthier neighborhoods with few current minority residents.

The regulation is designed to end decades-old segregation by offering affluent areas incentives to build affordable housing. Critics, including Carson, called it government overreach.

CES Executive Director Larry Gross said, “Ben Carson is totally unqualified to be HUD Secretary. HUD is among the most important federal agencies tasked with ensuring compliance with the Fair Housing Act, and creating affordable, preventing housing discrimination and ensuring inclusive communities. Ben Carson has shown a complete disregard and open hostility to government efforts to confront racist and discriminatory practices in the housing industry.”

Gross further stated, “The appointment of Ben Carson indicates that Donald Trump and his admiration has a complete disregard for tenants’ rights and an absolute lack of commitment to ensuring America’s poor will have a roof over their heads that is decent and that is one they can afford. This clearly is not a holiday present low-income HUD tenants wanted.”

In response the growing tactic of unscrupulous landlords attempting to coerce tenants living in rent controlled units to move by offering them “cash for keys,” the Los Angeles City Council Housing Committee considered a Tenant Protection Buyout Program proposal on August 17, 2016.

The Los Angeles Housing + Community Development Department (HCIDLA) presented their proposal to amend the Rent Stabilization Ordinance to prevent tenants from entering into buyout agreements without a full understanding of their rights. The proposal is based on a similar program adopted by the City of Santa Monica.

Landlords are using these buyouts to get tenants out without having to go through the Ellis Act Eviction Process or filing a Tenant Habitability Plan, two programs that protect tenants against abuse. By avoiding these processes landlords can obtain higher rents without paying correct relocation amounts, providing tenants the legal amount of time to move, providing tenants temporary relocation housing while the building is being renovated, being limited in raising rents and being prohibited from re-renting the units for 5 years, depending on what their intentions are for the property.

CES Director of Organizing Carlos Aguilar told the Committee, “While Ellis Act evictions spread throughout the city, we have seen an additional trend that greatly concerns us. Landlords are even bolder using more illegal tactics and offering cash for keys to get tenants out.”

Aguilar also said, For the most part, low income, immigrants and non-English speaking tenants are targeted for the lower illegal amounts. Many tenants don’t know they rights and believe they have no choice but taking the money and leaving.”

LA City Council Member David Ryu in a letter to the Committee stated, “The Rent Stabilization Ordinance was created to protect residents from excessive rent increases and limit reason for evictions. Yet, landlords will often offer “voluntary” buyout agreements to avoid these protections and skirt the law. As the real estate market has recovered, developers have been taking advantage of these “cash for keys” buyout tactics more frequently.”

The proposal would do the following:

Create a definition for a Buyout Agreement and Buyout Offer.

Require that landlords provide tenants with a written disclosure notice of the tenant’s rights under the RSO with regard to eviction and relocation assistance, including contact information for the HCIDLA landlord/tenant hotline.

Allow tenants to rescind buyout agreements for any reason for up to 30 days after the agreements are fully executed.

Further provide that the tenant may rescind agreements that do not satisfy the stipulated requirements at any time.

Provide tenants with an affirmative defense to an unlawful detainer and a civil remedy for actual damages and civil penalties against landlords who fail to comply with the buyout agreement regulations.

The Housing Committee adopted the proposal and moved it to the full City Council for approval.

UPDATE:On August 10, 2016, grocery workers across Central and Southern California approved a contract with the companies which own Ralphs, Vons, and Albertsons Stores.

The contract contains raises of nearly a dollar an hour over the three year span of the deal, automatic increases to compensate for new minimum wage laws, retirement security, and improved notice of scheduling.

“What do we want? A contract!,” the crowd of hundreds chanted.

“And when do we want it?” Now!,” echoed off the buildings in LA’s Koreatown area.

Participants met at Lafayette Park on 6th St and marched to the Ralphs and Vons, the corporations’ most profitable Southland stores, on the corner of 3rd and Vermont.

CES staff members were part of delegations that meet with the two store managers. CES Executive Director Larry Gross told the Ralphs manager, “I’m a loyal Ralphs customer, but my first loyalties are with your dedicated employees. We are in the most unaffordable city when it comes to housing with people, like grocery workers, paying more than 50% of their income to rent. Thus, it is imperative that grocery workers receive a just wage that enables them the ability to secure and maintain a roof over their families heads.”

Some 50,000 union grocery workers voted recently to authorize a strike against the supermarket companies. If a workable agreement isn’t reached by the August 8 deadline, a strike could occur as early as the following day.

What we want is a contract that helps makes ends meet,” said Rigo Valdez, Director of Organizing for UCFW Local 770, which represents workers from San Luis Obispo to San Diego.

Valdez said the lowest-paid employee makes $10.20 an hour, and some part-time employees are only guaranteed 24 hours a week. “That is certainly not enough to live off of,” he said.

Rigo Valdez, Director of Organizing, UCFW Local 770

Negotiations with management are currently underway.

At the same time Ralphs made over $3.6 billion in profits last year. That equals $69 million every week.

Employees are looking for concessions in relation to compensation, hours, and scheduling, Valdez said. Currently, workers received their schedule for the following week on Friday, which is “not enough time to get advanced notice” to get a second job or to arrange childcare, Valdez said.

With a unanimous 13-0 vote the Los Angeles City Council voted to extend the City’s Foreclosure Eviction Ordinance to protect tenants living in rental properties not subject to the City’s Rent Stabilization Ordinance (RSO) from eviction on the grounds of foreclosure for another two years. Tenants living in rent controlled units have had these protections.

Multi-family rental units built after 1978 and all single-family home rentals are not subject to the City’s rent control law.

The Ordinance extension approved on December 15, 2015 prohibits lenders from evicting any tenants in the City merely because of foreclosure on their landlords.

The law requires landlords seeking to recover possession of a rental unit from a tenant, must comply with all the RSO requirements and provisions for eviction, including the payment of relocation fees for no-fault evictions. Since the passage of the Ordinance, more than 59,000 properties containing over 79,000 units have been foreclosed on in the City.

The Foreclosure Eviction Ordinance was originally passed on December 17, 2008 and was nation’s first Foreclosure Eviction Moratorium. It has been extended every year since in response to a national crisis that has not subsided.

They’ve done nothing wrong. Paid their rent on time. But, without this protection these heartless banks could evict evict them simply because they’re living in foreclosed rental property.

Gross went on to say, “We applaud the Council in providing national leadership by enacting the strongest tenant foreclosure protections in the country. It provides tenants with a little bit of hope and justice. This action is an action needed to help keep these banks accountable. It truly is a tenants’ rights victory.”

The LA Housing and Community Investment Department Foreclosure Registry data for 2015 indicates that the foreclosure crisis continues to affect City residents and neighborhoods. A total of 10,381 properties were registered in the City’s Foreclosure Registry from January through November 8, 2015, comprised of 4,273 first time property registrations and 6,108 re-registered properties (with a notice of default and/or foreclosure from 2014). This reflects a ten percent increase from 2014 registrations, which totaled 9,431.

When San Francisco apartment house owners retrofit their buildings, the entire cost will be passed on to their tenants. City Councilman Gil Cedillo has promised that won’t happen in Los Angeles. Today, his committee is taking up what could be the most extensive retrofitting requirements in California history. Who should bear the cost of making those buildings earthquake safe?

We need to address the threat of earthquake,” says Larry Gross, executive director of the renters rights group Coalition for Economic Survival, “but we don’t want to create an economic earthquake for a tenant who won’t be able to afford this increase and will likely be displaced from their home.”

It could cost up to $130,000 to extensively inspect — including partially dismantling — and then strengthen each building. A landlord’s group puts the cost at about $5,000 for a single unit. Under the approved ordinance, owners can pass the entire cost on to renters over a five- to 10-year span.

Gross, of the Coalition for Economic Survival, says that while this is the worst time to allow citywide rent increases, reality suggests $38 is a good compromise.

“Clearly, given the situation where tenants in this city are now mostly paying unaffordable rents, and most are paying upward of 50 percent of their income to rent, we don’t like the idea of one more dollar in rent,” Gross says. “The fact is that right now the current law states tenants could be hit with upward of a $75 increase and would have to bear the burden of the retrofit costs. One hundred percent could be passed on. That’s a fact.”

Based on the $38 monthly maximum, the average L.A. tenant would see an increase more like $18, for a range of $1,800 to $3,800 in hikes if somebody rents in L.A. for a decade.

“This proposal definitely strives to establish some degree of equity in regards to who pays for the costs,” Gross says. “We’re doing everything we can to try to soften the blow, because we’ve seen the blow coming.”

LOS ANGELES (CBS) — The Los Angeles City Council Housing Committee considered a Housing and Community Development Department proposed compromise in which building owners and renters would share the financial burden equally of earthquake retrofit cost that will be mandated for some 13,ooo concrete and soft story apartment buildings in Los Angeles. Under the plan, tenants would face rent increases over a 10-year period, with a maximum increase of $38 per month.